The Japanese-born, Surrey-raised author of The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go follows in the footsteps of Bob Dylan, Harold Pinter and Winston Churchill in receiving the literary world's highest honour.

Mr Ishiguro, who has already won the Man Booker Prize and was awarded an OBE in 1995, said the award was "flabbergastingly flattering".

He added: "It's a magnificent honour, mainly because it means that I'm in the footsteps of the greatest authors that have lived, so that's a terrific commendation."

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Surrey's literary connections

The Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in Literature, said Mr Ishiguro was a writer "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world".

Born in Nagasaki in 1954, Mr Ishiguro's family moved to Guildford six years later when his father was offered a job as an oceanographer.

It was only intended to be a temporary stay, but he has lived in the UK ever since and was educated at Woking County Grammar School and the University of Kent.

Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield in the 2011 film of Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (Image: Publicity Picture)

His first novel, A Pale View of Hills, was published in 1982, but it was in 1989 that his most famous work, Remains of the Day, was released.

Apart from these, he has written only six other books, including 2005's Never Let Me Go and, most recently, 2015's The Buried Giant.

The announcement of Mr Ishiguro's Nobel Laureateship comes just before the start of his home town's book festival , which begins on Sunday (October 8).

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